


Winter Soldier - Retaking The Past

by Vendetta23



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Blood, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Dark, Death Threats, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evil Nick Fury, Hallucinations, Hero Complex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multiple Personalities, POV Bucky Barnes, POV First Person, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Recovery, Seriously Dark Fic, Stucky - Freeform, Suffering, Suicide Attempt, Torture, Trauma, dynamic, vanilla sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-07-10 12:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6985321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vendetta23/pseuds/Vendetta23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>End of the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier; Bucky Barnes, caught up between the decision of concluding the order to finish his mission and kill his, whom he barely remembers, best friend, or to save him, end up leaving him unconscious by the river after the explosion of the carrier. He remembered that man he just saved, he couldn’t kill him, he meant someone important. Now, will James Barnes recover his real identity, his past? Will Steve and he be able to have the same relationship as before?<br/>First person POV: Bucky<br/>(Translated from my fanfiction written in Portuguese)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Name Is...

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Winter Soldier - Retomando o Passado](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/200578) by Vendetta23. 



> Please mind the tags, this is a dark fic and things can be triggering and I worry for your safety, ok?

Yes, he is fallen at my feet, unconscious, I could end my mission right now, but I can’t. My mind is burning, I want something from inside it but I don’t know what, I can’t find it, I can’t… I should leave. I walk through the woods oriented by the sound of the highway that runs close. Yes, faster, I need at least a new set of knives, new clothes, a coat to hide my arm, I need to vanish. I stop a car in the highway.

“Get out” the driver freezes when he sees me by his window, he could at least be faster, but I don’t want to spill more blood than I already have “Didn’t you hear me?” I speak louder, he opens the door and I make the detour to get out of that city.

_‘Your name is James Buchanan Barnes’_ the voice screams in my head, it doesn’t stop, I know that man, I am sure of it, but I just want him to stop, my head is hurting like the devil and my arm feels like it’s in flames, I think the man broke my shoulder. _‘I am not gonna fight you’_ every word is like a punch to the stomach, my vision starts to blur, I pull over. Fucking armor, I rip it apart as I can’t control the strength of my left arm, I can’t lose control now but, shit, I’m sweating a lot, trembling. With flashes, pieces of images emerge from my head as if they were memories lost long ago, a train, shots, and a hangar on fire. My insides are unbearably hot, I face myself for a second in the rearview mirror and what I see in my eyes terrorizes me. Uncertainty? It can’t be, I was trained, I am the best at what I do and everything I do depends on the certainty of when to attack, when to flee, of what targets to hit. Certainty is all I know, it has built me up from nothing, it answers me when I ask if what I am doing is good for the world – _shape the century_ –, if it helps winning the war, and now I feel like all of that is pouring through my fingers, and all of that because of someone I barely remember. For fucks sake, what is his name? Stevan? Steve? Yes, Steve. He was mine. My target, I had to end him, it makes no sense to think he ever meant something to me, I shaped the century, I was going to win the war.

 Another image came up to me, I was pressing the sniper’s trigger and a man – _enemy_ – fell. I raised my eyes from the aim and shook my head to a man. It was him, I know. Why is everything so nebulous?? I just need to get out of here, I will worry about that later. I return the car to the highway and hit the accelerator.  


	2. Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WAKES UP COVERED IN DUST* "I LIIIIVE"

Nigh has fallen already, it is better to stop at a gas station to refuel. I pull over and look in all directions, bloody hell, I am certain that someone is following me. Before getting out of the car, I observe the behavior of a woman who was prowling around the gas station, but she didn’t seem suspicious, she had just finished her bottle of vodka and was now trying to walk out of there without falling from her high heels. I cover my face with my hood and get out of the car to fill the tank. I take a glance inside the convenience store, it seems empty and I would give anything for a cigarette. Crossing to the other end of the gas station, I open the door to the small store. Inside, two men gave me an ugly look, but soon they returned to their conversation. 

“So, I said he would survive” said the tall guy with a red baseball cap while opening the drinks fridge. I pretended to be looking at the magazines on the shelf behind them. 

“But he took a beat” the smaller man grunted, taking a 5 dollar bill out of his pocket and stretching it out to the other guy. 

“Whatever, I won” his friend opened a half smile and took the money with satisfaction. I turned to the counter to take a look at the cigarettes they had, but the mute TV caught my attention from above the display, it showed pictures of the devastated city of Washington, a journalist was making comments on them as they kept changing to much worst images. They then started exhibiting the front of a hospital and several amateur movies that showed the exact moment when people on the emergency hall recorded Capitan America, I mean, Steve, coming in a littler, he was bleeding badly from the abdomen. I glance down at my hands, did I do that? I realize that I had spent way too much time staring at the TV when the two guys I saw were right behind me complaining that I was standing in the way to the cashier. I feel the blood starting to run down a cut in my forehead, I walk out of the store empty handed. 

In the car, my chest hurts and my head spins. I drive through a plaque that points the direction of some city ahead, I can’t read it’s name but I take the first entrance towards it. I drive slowly through the dim streets of this seemingly ghost town, it looks like it was build next to an industrial complex, judging by the number of constructions in ruins and enormous metal sheds I pass through, it surely doesn’t have the importance that it once had anymore. I park my car in front of the only hotel I could spot, the billboard to Amber’s Hotel had the lights of the letters H and L off but anything would do. I check my surroundings to see If anyone had followed me, why wasn’t anyone after me? Hadn’t they recognized me? I almost killed Captain America, not even mentioning all the people I actually offed, I should be all over the news. At that point, the blood dripping out of the deep cuts didn’t seem like mine. I slam the car’s door and head up to the hotel, taking with me the money I found in the glove compartment. 

At the entrance hall, I paid for a room and headed upstairs as soon as I got my key, anxious that the woman at the counter would notice something off about me, the cuts and bruises or maybe the strange format of my left arm under the jacket. I headed to the third floor and thankfully did not see any other living soul in that hotel. Good. I closed the door as soon as I entered my room and gave in to the tiredness that was making my whole body ache, I finally fell on the bed. I should go back. What was the point of going after that guy? If he was really my friend he wouldn’t have let my head turn out this bad, I am confused, I am afraid. Since when haven’t I felt afraid? Until now I was following orders, I always had an objective, somewhere to go, something to finish, and now I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do, and the only thing I feel is this terrible feeling filling my insides. I reached the bottom, a soldier with no mission. That guy wasn’t kidding when he dropped the shield in front of me, he really thought I wasn’t going to kill him. I felt like his eyes were trying to send me a message. 

And I didn’t kill him… what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

The yellow wall to my side was the only thing I stared to for hours straight. I am burning hot, I am hallucinating, that’s it, that explains everything. I walk towards the bathroom, leaving my jacket and jeans on the floor behind me, the suspiciously turbid water from the sink brings relief to the pain in my head as I wash my face carefully to not open up the wound again. I clear the dust off the mirror with my hand, trying not make my eyes meet with their reflection, I don’t want to look at myself, I just want to take care of the cuts so they don’t get any more infected. The bruises are already showing up on my face, my shoulder is swollen where Steve twisted it. I look like shit. I slowly move my arm, checking if it’s malfunctioning, and then make my way to the bed again. I don’t turn the lights off.

I am about to fall to sleep, I can’t even tell if I am awake or not, when I hear a voice calling me out of a dark place. I feel like I am stumbling down a kind of void, and the voice get’s closer and closer, to the point when I seems like it’s being whispered to my ear. 

“I’m with you to the end” and I don’t feel alone anymore.


	3. New Mission

_Inside the trenches, the heat from the explosions and the putrid smell of dead bodies seemed to us like the annunciation of hell itself. We had almost no water left and the ration had ran out two days ago, I couldn’t sleep, I knew we were surrounded. Thank God I introduced that girl to Steve, he wouldn’t stand like to be left alone._

_I was strapped down to a chair when I woke up by the brute hands of a man that was shaking me violently. He untied me and pulled me out of the chair, and I could do nothing but watch him hold my weak body up, grab my face with a strong grip and look me deep in the eyes. My vision was blurred, didn’t I die? He put me standing on my feet and I put an arm around his shoulder for support. The aggravating heat could only indicate fire, the smoke made me cough compulsively. I looked at the man by my side after scrubbing my eyes, saying “I thought you were smaller” even though I didn’t know why._

_I was in middle air, hanging from a piece of metal on a train that was passing through a bridge at full velocity. I looked at my feet and panicked from seeing the abyss down below. Gelid wind gusts were rocking my body back and forth, I strengthened the grip around the piece of metal, screaming for help. A hand wrapped on blue cloth stretched out in my direction, “Bucky!” a voice screamed and I tried to reach it with my right arm but soon I was once again holding the cold metal with both hands, I am going to fall. After trying to reach out to the hand that seemed to be floating on the whiteness of the snow one more time, my hand slipped and I heard two screams while I was falling down towards the foot of the mountain, one of them was mine._

_The cold air makes my lungs burn inside and I can’t see more than shadows. The pain in my left arm is agonizing, I struggle to move but I can’t, I feel like I am being stabbed from everywhere around me, each movement hurts and I can’t scream. “Erase his memories” the harsh voice comes from above. I hear some kind of machine being turned on and something pressing on my temples, an electric sound is all I hear before all the muscles in my body contract and I bite my tongue so hard that I chop a piece of it. I can smell the burning flesh._

 

I wake up when the first morning rays permeated through the shutter, I am soaking wet, I can’t breathe properly, the air seems to get stuck in my throat and it doesn’t matter how many times it fills my lungs, they never cease to ask for more. I look around the room quickly, but the confirmation that everything was just a bad dream doesn’t seem to make it any less unnerving. I remember. Steve Rogers, the super soldier, little Steve, my… my best friend. I jump out of the bed so fast that I accidently break a piece of the headboard. How could I forget? Those last days were finally hitting me like a punch to the face. I pointed a gun at him, I didn’t… I didn’t know who I was, of course he wasn’t going to fight me, how could I? I was already kneeled down on the floor, as if I was asking forgiveness for someone who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there. Why was I apologizing then? I wouldn’t be capable of forgiving myself.

I grab my jacket and put it on to conceal my arm, and when I come to myself again I realize I am walking down the corridor, feeling like shit and screaming to myself in my head ‘go after him’. I surely have to do some explaining. I arrive at the entrance Hall with my keys in hand and I am looking around for the receptionist when I feel a very strong pressure on my injured shoulder and my arm being twisted to my back, I get pushed into the wall and it produces a thud when I hit it.

“You move, I kill you. I am here to help, are we clear?” I grunted what it seemed to be a yes, so they let me go. I turned around and saw a woman, she had been fighting at Steve’s side those past days, I owned her an apology as well, I guessed. She was wearing a black leather jacket and holding an army knife at her waist, her red locks were tied behind her head in a ponytail. I observe her carefully for a couple of seconds.

“Look…” I say but she wouldn’t let me finish, she raised her jacket, showing a nasty scar on her belly that looked like a bullet perforation.

“Soviet fabrication” she said, the scar was star shaped “It was you” she let go of her jacket and took a few steps back, leaning on the counter behind her. I don’t know what to say.

“I don’t remember doing this” the words come out slowly while I turn my memories upside down, but everything is shattered in there, there are just pieces of pieces and I can’t put anything back together.

“I know. I brought you some things” she kicked a bag that was on the floor by the counter “You need money and new documents to really disappear, everything you need is here” she grabbed the bag and stretched it out to me, avoiding my eyes. I don’t take the bag.

“I’m going after him” I say, and she finally looks at my face.

“Look, I know you are confused, but he doesn’t have to suffer more than he already did” she kept her voice low and her tone serious. I stop breathing for a moment when his name comes to my head.

“I remember him, Natasha, I…” did I just say her name? Now she is looking at me with a disoriented look in her face, I can hear her breathing shaking.

 

_We are inside a ring, my arm feels like it’s burning and she is in front of me holding a defensive position, it snows outside the window in Kiev. She throws a kick and I dodge it, I try to use my metal arm to punch her on the temple but she grabs and twists it, hitting me then on the eyebrow with her elbow. After, on the dressing room, I clean the blood off my cheek and the sweat off the back of my neck with a towel._

_“You are improving” she said and sat next to me on the bench._

_“I still have a long way to go” my arm needed improvements against the frost bite, I realize when I try to move my hardened fingers. She finishes drying her scarlet hair with the towel and proceeds to get the hairs out of her face with her fingers before pulling me to a long kiss. She smells of fighting, of death._

_“Soon we’ll be working together” she smiles._

The fog in my head started to dissipate, I leant on the wall for support. Natasha dropped the bag on the floor and looked at me as if she was in pain.  

“James, please…” she whispered.

“I remember you. We were together when I was being trained, what the hell happened there, Natasha?” it was too late when I realized I was raising my voice. I walk towards her, getting close enough to notice the smell of death was still there, only hidden under a thin layer of perfume “I need to know”. She stared at me for a few moments before starting to talk.

“You were introduced to me only as The Winter Soldier, they never mentioned your true name” she backed down and sat on the counter, she was looking at the floor again, looking guilty again “I never even asked anyway.  We were side by side for a long time, Barnes, but after knowing everything you did…”

“Everything they made me do” I interrupted her, feeling in my guts that she wasn’t in position to judge “They teared my head apart piece by piece” my lips trembled from the memory of that pain “I didn’t know what I was doing, for who I was working, who I was hurting…” I had to remember to breathe, “Of who I was”. I didn’t know if she believed me or not, but after a moment she jumped out of the counter and nodded.

“Then you have to prove everyone that, because what you did back then was not a walk on the park. You took many lives” she pointed to the bag on the floor.

“I have a long way to go, I know that” I picked it up “But I’m going to fix everything”

“So go after him” she said, already making her way out of the door, I couldn’t figure if her tone was sad or pitiful “Good luck, Barnes” she said after turning her back on me, hiding her face.

I then turn to the counter and leave the keys on it. I don’t even bother to look for the receptionist, Natasha only found me because she had eyes everywhere and was very talented in the arts of making people flee in terror, I just wish the people who are after me aren’t the same kind as her.

I throw the bag in the trunk of the car and open it to take a quick look after setting off to God knows where. I see some rolls of fifty dollar bills, some fake passports, a repair kit for me to take care of my flesh and metal parts, and a file market as secret. I grab the file and open it.

The file contained all the trajectory of the Capitan America since the super serum project to his recent re-filiation with S.H.I.E.L.D. There were many pictures in between the pages, and I take a careful look at all of them, hoping it would bring out something buried in the back of my mind. They ended up making me fell a little better, like I wasn’t alone. I stop at a picture of Steve among the soldiers of the 107th infantry regiment because I spot myself among those faces. The short hair, face lightened up by an honest smile, that was a much different person than the one that appeared on the bathroom mirror last night. It was really amazing that I was able to recognize myself. I detach that picture from the file and put it in my pocket, closing the trunk right after. Natasha had already put the file among all those things on the bag before knowing that I remembered, that I wanted more than anything to set things straight. I guess she didn’t want me to leave after all, and put the file in there so I my memories would maybe come back.

I start the car and get back on the road, going through the next detour I see to head back to Washington.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, hello! I am hoping to upade this fic really fast since I am translating it from my original fic in portuguese, but I am sorry if I do not manage it, I really do :( And let me apogolize already for any mistakes I made or will make regarding the use of english :3


End file.
